Wednesday, July 17, 2013

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Bob Carr fears asylum-seeker numbers could double unless a new approach is found to stop the influx of boats.

Senator Carr's warning comes as a new breed of asylum seekers - not linked to conflict zones - is heading to Australia.

Senator Carr told a function in Sydney last night that the numbers would continue to grow - and be driven by economic factors - unless Australia found new solutions to stem the flow.

"The nature of the challenge has changed for us," he said. "It's no longer a tiny number, it's 3000 or more a month - that's 40,000 a year - it could go higher, and that's 20 per cent of the Australian migrant intake.

"And I just think people with humanitarian instincts, we've got to start thinking about fresh answers on this because if it can be 40,000 a year without a major upset in the region ... then that 50,000 a year, 40,000 a year could very easily double."

Senator Carr said it was a "different quality of the problem" faced by Australian between 2001 and 2004.

"It really is," he said. "We've got a capacity to turn Australians xenophobic against immigration because of the mounting numbers and the fact that - yes I will insist on this - we're getting many advise that it is economic pressure (and) economic aspirations (driving the arrivals)."

The latest boat, carrying 84 people, sailed directly from Vietnam, where there has been no conflict for 30 years.

Already this year, 759 Vietnamese boat people have come to Australia - the largest group to turn up since just after the Vietnam War - and more than four times the total number that has arrived in the three previous years.

The unexpected influx will put increasing pressure on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to toughen up his asylum-seeker policies.

More than 17,000 boatpeople arrived last year, but already 14,500 have landed on our shores this year.

The new Vietnamese rush came as Mr Rudd left PNG with no breakthrough on the asylum crisis. There had been speculation of a new deal but Mr Rudd said the countries would "continue to strengthen and to further our practical co-operation against our common enemy, people smugglers".

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa left open the prospect of accepting the Opposition's tow-back boat policy yesterday and said a conference to combating people smuggling would take place next month.

He also dealt the Government a blow after it had seized on Indonesia's insistence no country should take "unilateral action" as evidence it would reject the Opposition's policy.

"Well, I think the first point that must be underscored is that when we used the term 'unilateral action' it is not to deny the fact that there are things that countries can do at the national level," Mr Natalegawa said.

"We have had good communication, including with the Opposition party in terms of where they wish to take the discussion forward."

Indonesia says it is 'willing to talk' with Opposition on turn-back-the-boats policy

A FRESH wave of Vietnamese boat people is reaching Australia, with the latest vessel carrying 84 intercepted within sight of the WA resort town of Broome as Indonesia's foreign minister left open the prospect of accepting the Opposition's boat turn back policy.

The group is believed to have sailed directly from Vietnam, with 759 Vietnamese arriving this year and 937 since 2010, almost half the post-war influx in the late 1970s and early '80s.

Immigration officials are concerned young girls could be being trafficked and that the people-smuggling trade between Vietnam and Australia had links to drugs, with concern also yesterday that two Vietnamese asylum seekers escaped from Northern Detention Centre near Darwin during the weekend.

HMAS Maitland took the group to Broome and they were to be taken to Curtin Detention Centre for health, security and identity checks.

The new Vietnamese rush came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd left PNG securing only further talks with the country on regional responses and little breakthrough on the asylum crisis.

There had been speculation of a new deal but Mr Rudd said the countries would "continue to strengthen and to further our practical co-operation against our common enemy, people smugglers."

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa left open the prospect of accepting the Opposition's tow-back policy yesterday and said a conference to discuss combating people smuggling, agreed to when Mr Rudd was in Jakarta, would take place next month.

He also dealt the government a blow after it had seized on Indonesia's insistence no country should take "unilateral action" as evidence it would not accept the Opposition's policy.

"Well I think the first point that must be underscored is that when we used the term unilateral action it is not to deny the fact that there are things that countries can do at the national level,'' Mr Natalegawa said.

He added: "We have had good communication, including with the Opposition party in terms of where they wish to take the discussion forward. So I am sure when the time comes, if the time comes, there will be a lot more communications going back and forth in trying to better comprehend and better understand what the Opposition has meant by policies that have introduced."

Mr Rudd's visit to PNG came just days after a baby boy from Sri Lanka drowned and eight other asylum seekers vanished from a vessel that sank north of Christmas Island on Friday night.

It is understood at least two children are among the asylum seekers missing, presumed dead.

Australian authorities have also conducted another dramatic rescue after HMAS Bathurst found a captainless vessel carrying 67 people at 11am Sunday.

The passengers told the crew their skipper had plunged from the vessel around 6am and that another crew member had leapt off several hours later but had been recovered alive.

HMAS Bathurst, another navy vessel and a RAAF plane scoured the ocean 113 nautical miles north of Christmas Island.

The captain was spotted alive by the surveillance plane around 6pm and rescued by the crew of HMAS Bathurst, with asylum seekers already on board identifying him.

Authorities were baffled about why the pair plunged from the vessel, with speculation they may have believed they were to be picked up and returned to Indonesia as part of the people-smuggling operation.

About 2000 asylum seekers have arrived in the first 14 days of July, with Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison saying: "Kevin Rudd is on track to beat even Julia Gillard's record for the most arrivals in a month, with people turning up at the rate of almost 1000 per week."

LET'S be very plain, as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would put it: The great Labor crusade against climate change has been abandoned for the sake of short-term electoral gain.

What once had been the "the great moral question of our generation" has been reduced to an election bribe.

Mr Rudd's policy revisionism today was about making a neutered version of the climate change crusade an election positive by promising it would deliver further help to household finances.

The priority was switched from protecting future Australian generations from disastrous global warming to protecting Labor from an electoral roasting.

The climate change crusade was ended in the most brutal way. It was "terminated," in Mr Rudd's word.

This will annoy the Greens but will hearten most Labor MPs struggling to justify a scheme which the Labor Government itself called - for almost three years - a carbon tax.

Those Labor MPs will not regret shucking off the electorally damaging carbon price scheme forced on it by the Greens during creation of the minority government.

Mostly it will annoy the Tony Abbott Opposition which has seen it's "great big tax" line taken from it and used against it. It's now the Opposition which is being accused of a "great big tax" to fund its Direct Action scheme for subsidised carbon emissions reduction by business.

That wasn't the only political purloining.

Mr Rudd has effectively acknowledged carbon pricing has been a burden on household and business budgets, much as Mr Abbott has been saying.

The Prime Minister today said extra assistance was needed "at a time of economic transition and structural change in the global economy". Which is pretty well what Mr Abbott has been saying.

The Rudd version of an early, floating price on carbon would help households by around $380 a year, while the Opposition's direction would cost $1200 in taxes. Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey has called those calculations "lies" but clearly the debate has shifted substantially.

QUEENSLAND could have its own shale gas industry within two years, the State Government says. Government briefing notes for Environment Minister Andrew Powell show there are 16 shale gas exploration programs in the state.

But it warns any development would need numerous wells and an extensive expansion of the gas pipeline network to be viable. It would also use the controversial process known as fracking, which will put the fledgling industry on course for a battle with environmentalists.

The departmental briefing said the extraction of gas "can mobilise naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs) into water extracted from the well".

It said NORMs were limited in Australian geology but the issue would need monitoring by the companies involved.

The main areas for exploration are the Cooper, Galilee, Eromanga and Maryborough basins. The Cooper Basin is already well developed and is considered the most likely to have the infrastructure to handle the development.

The Maryborough Basin may be the most difficult, with a growing concern among the community to coal and gas development. Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer are exploring for coal in the district.

"Operators have advised that up-scale and production (of shale gas) will likely commence in 2015," the ministerial briefing note said.

It said the process used would drill as deep as 2000m, which "significantly reduces risks of interconnectivity with aquifers".

It said up to 16 million litres would be needed for one well, compared with the 1 million used by CSG. However, most shale gas wells are dry and do not harvest the levels of groundwater CSG wells do.

An APPEA spokesman said similar to the production of natural gas from coal, any water sourced could potentially be re-injected underground or used to drought-proof regional Queensland properties. But, according to the State Government, exploration "is occurring in basins where water availability is limited".

Anti-CSG activist Drew Hutton said the American experience showed there were strong community concerns with shale gas, especially with the impact of fracking.

He said his organisation, Lock the Gate, had the same concerns with shale gas as it did with CSG, including its potential health impacts and possible water contamination.

"We are concerned about shale gas activities along the Cooper River, in western Queensland, because of its potential effects on the Lake Eyre Basin and in the Maryborough-Bundaberg area, which is good farm land," Mr Hutton said.

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Background

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

Most academics are lockstep Leftists so readers do sometimes doubt that I have the qualifications mentioned above. Photocopies of my academic and military certificates are however all viewable here

For overseas readers: The "ALP" is the Australian Labor Party -- Australia's major Leftist party. The "Liberal" party is Australia's major conservative political party.

In most Australian States there are two conservative political parties, the city-based Liberal party and the rural-based National party. But in Queensland those two parties are amalgamated as the LNP.

Again for overseas readers: Like the USA, Germany and India, Australia has State governments as well as the Federal government. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).

For American readers: A "pensioner" is a retired person living on Social Security

"Digger" is an honorific term for an Australian soldier

Another lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

Another bit of Australian: Any bad writing or messy anything was once often described as being "like a pakapoo ticket". In origin this phrase refers to a ticket written with Chinese characters - and thus inscrutably confusing to Western eyes. These tickets were part of a Chinese gambling game called "pakapoo".

Two of my ancestors were convicts so my family has been in Australia for a long time. As well as that, all four of my grandparents were born in the State where I was born and still live: Queensland. And I am even a member of the world's second-most condemned minority: WASPs (the most condemned is of course the Jews -- which may be why I tend to like Jews). So I think I am as Australian as you can get. I certainly feel that way. I like all things that are iconically Australian: meat pies, Vegemite, Henry Lawson etc. I particularly pride myself on my familiarity with the great Australian slanguage. I draw the line at Iced Vo-Vos and betting on the neddies, however. So if I cannot comment insightfully on Australian affairs, who could?

My son Joe

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

I am an army man. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies or mining companies

Although I have been an atheist for all my adult life, I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak.

The Rt. Rev. Phil Case (Moderator of the Presbyterian church in Queensland) is a Pharisee, a hypocrite, an abomination and a "whited sepulchre".

English-born Australian novellist, Patrick White was a great favourite in literary circles. He even won a Nobel prize. But I and many others I have spoken to find his novels very turgid and boring. Despite my interest in history, I could only get through about a third of his historical novel Voss before I gave up. So why has he been so popular in literary circles? Easy. He was a miserable old Leftist coot, and, incidentally, a homosexual. And literary people are mostly Leftists with similar levels of anger and alienation from mainstream society. They enjoy his jaundiced outlook, his dissatisfaction, rage and anger.

Would you believe that there once was a politician whose nickname was "Honest"? "Honest" Frank Nicklin M.M. was a war hero, a banana farmer and later the conservative Premier of my home State of Queensland in the '60s. He was even popular with the bureaucracy and gave the State a remarkably tranquil 10 years during his time in office. Sad that there are so few like him.

Revered Labour Party leader Gough Whitlam was a very erudite man so he cannot have been unaware of the similarities of his famous phrase “the Party, the platform, the people” with an earlier slogan: "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer". It's basically the same slogan in reverse order.

Australia's original inhabitants were a race of pygmies, some of whom survived into modern times in the mountainous regions of the Atherton tableland in far North Queensland. See also here. Below is a picture of one of them taken in 2007, when she was 105 years old and 3'7" tall

Julia Gillard, a failed feminist flop. She was given the job of Prime Minister of Australia but her feminist preaching was so unpopular that she was booted out of the job by her own Leftist party. Her signature "achievements" were the carbon tax and the mining tax, both of which were repealed by the next government.

The "White Australia Policy: "The Immigration Restriction Act was not about white supremacy, racism, or the belief that whites were higher up the evolutionary tree than the coloured races. Rather, it was designed to STOP the racist exploitation of non-whites (all of whom would have been illiterate peasants practicing religions and cultures anathema to progressive democracy) being conscripted into a life of semi-slavery in a coolie-worked plantation economy for the benefit of the absolute monarchs, hereditary aristocracy and the super-wealthy companies and share-holders of the northern hemisphere.

A great little kid

In November 2007, a four-year-old boy was found playing in a croc-infested Territory creek after sneaking off pig hunting alone with four dogs and a puppy. The toddler was found five-and-a-half hours after he set off from his parents' house playing in a creek with the puppy. Amazingly, Daniel Woditj also swam two creeks known to be inhabited by crocs during his adventurous romp. Mr Knight said that after walking for several kilometres, Daniel came to a creek and swam across it. Four of his dogs "bailed up" at the creek but the youngster continued on undaunted with his puppy to a second creek. Mr Knight said Daniel swam the second croc-infested creek and walked on for several more kilometres. "Captain is a hard bushman and Daniel is following in his footsteps. They breed them tough out bush."

A great Australian: His eminence George Pell. Pictured in devout company before his elevation to Rome

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here